Simple POI background fill issue

Question

I'm using poi 3.14 and all I want is to set the background of the cell to be orange. I don't want a pattern filled, just a solid orange, and yet I cannot get it to work. Here's what I have:

    Row row = sheet.createRow(currentRow);

    CellStyle style = workbook.createCellStyle();
    style.setFillForegroundColor(IndexedColors.AUTOMATIC.getIndex());
    style.setFillBackgroundColor(IndexedColors.ORANGE.getIndex());
    style.setFillPattern(CellStyle.ALIGN_FILL);

    Cell cell = row.createCell(0);
    cell.setCellValue("ABCDEFG");
    cell.setCellStyle(style);

What I end up with is an orange background with small dots pattern. On Excel's property sheet, it says I have bg=orange, fg=automatic, pattern=25% Gray. How can I use simply a blank pattern style?

Answer 1

It seems unintuitive first but the setFillForegroundColor method actually sets the foreground color of the background fill not the text (which comes to mind first as foreground). Similarly, you need to use CellStyle.SOLID_FOREGROUND for the fill pattern. See below for a working version.

Row row = sheet.createRow(currentRow);

CellStyle style = workbook.createCellStyle();
style.setFillForegroundColor(IndexedColors.ORANGE.getIndex());
style.setFillPattern(CellStyle.SOLID_FOREGROUND);

Cell cell = row.createCell(0);
cell.setCellValue("ABCDEFG");
cell.setCellStyle(style);

You may refer to the poi user guide for more examples: http://poi.apache.org/spreadsheet/quick-guide.html#FillsAndFrills .